Altering the brain's recollections may lead to treatments for depression, PTSD

Steve Ramirez, 27Harvard | NeuroscienceGraduate school: MIT

If not for a broken piece of lab equipment and a college crush, Steve Ramirez might never have gone into neuroscience. As an undergraduate at Boston University his interests were all over the place: He was taking a humanities course and classes in philosophy and biochemistry while working several hours a week in a biology lab. When the lab’s centrifuge, a device that spins liquids, broke, Ramirez had to use one in another lab.

“I was trying to make small talk with this girl who was using the centrifuge, ‘What’s your major?’ kind of thing,” Ramirez recalls. Hearing of his myriad interests, the student suggested that Ramirez talk with neuroscientist Paul Lipton. That led to a conversation with

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